Adding Streaming Audio or Visual to Your Web Site is a Great Way to Make an Impact

If you own a business you know how hard it is to find loyal customers. Increased competition and bad experiences tend to make consumers confused about the right company to select when they need a product or service. You can help them out by including testimonials on your web site. I'm not talking about a written testimonial. Anyone can "fake" a written testimonial from a client.

What I'm referring to is streaming audio and visual. Get your clients to tell you exactly how much they love your product or service and post it to your site. When prospects visit, they can get first-hand experience on how your company solved a problem for one of your clients. It's much more powerful than reading a written testimonial.

Adding streaming audio or visual to your site isn't very difficult. As long as your hosting company can handle streaming the mpg or mp3 files, the code can be easily embedded.

How effective is your elevator speech?

How do you respond when someone asks you what you do? When you answer them, do their eyes glaze over or do they just say "Oh," and walk away? If your elevator speech isn't concise and intriguing, you're losing out on a very big opportunity to sell your company's products or services.

Hey, I used to give what I thought was a very good answer for the "Who are you and what do you do?" question. I would tell them how I am a marketing consultant that works with small business owners. I would add that when they hire me, it is just like having a marketing person on staff without the high costs of salary and benefits. I thought that was a great answer. It was very concise and to-the-point, but I have to admit, I got the "that's nice" answer and then nothing....

Then, I realized I needed to develop an elevator speech that was motivating enough for the person to want to find out more. Now when I'm asked what I do, I respond with "I help business owners get more clients than they know what to do with and increase their profits by 30% in six to nine months." See the difference? Now, if you were a business owner, wouldn't you want to know how I could help you do that? I know I would!

So, how do you craft that unique elevator speech? It's simple. Think of how your product or service solves a problem for your client and focus on what the end result benefits would be to them. Then, try it out on some people and see how they react. If you've crafted the right elevator speech, you are certain to get a great response.

Selecting the Right Web Designer

In recent weeks and months, I've heard about the horrors some have experienced in hiring unscrupulous or inexperienced companies to design their web site. For an article that was published in Business Week this past summer, click on the link at the bottom of this article.

Eagle Soars Marketing takes great care in providing the best web solutions for their customers. While it is hard to be objective when talking about your own company, I know we have worked hard to create a service that meets the demanding needs of our customers. When it comes to selecting a web designer, please be careful and do your homework. At Eagle Soars, we suggest the following:

1. Work with a local web designer - Instead of just hiring the first company you find on the web that touts inexpensive web design, do your homework. It's much better to work with someone who is local. Eagle Soars Marketing has done web design work for clients around the country, but those projects came to us through a referral from one of our existing clients. We were in constant communication with these distant clients and made them feel at ease with the web design process.
   
2. Make sure you know what you want before you talk to a web designer - Look at sites before you meet with someone to find out what you want and don't want. Knowing what you want makes it easier for the designer to give you an accurate proposal - everyone is on the same page when it comes to the final outcome of the project. Also consider whether you want the designer or someone else to maintain the updates on your site or if you would like to handle this aspect yourself.
   
3. Check references - It's one thing to look at a designer's work, but how easy were they to work with? Did they follow through with the assignment as proposed? Were they easy to get in touch with when there was a question? Did they respond quickly to messages? Did they work within the budget? Did they complete the work in the time they estimated?
   
4. Get a proposal with a not-to-exceed cost - A lot of companies will give you the lowest price just to get the work and then they come up with change orders. Before you know it, the price has doubled. Make sure everything is clearly spelled out in a proposal so you know what is included and what is not. If the designer knows what you want, they should have no problem giving you a solid not-to-exceed cost.
5. Register your own domain name - Don't leave this crucial step up to the person who will be doing the design work. It's your company and you should own the domain name. This is a critical point that I cannot stress enough. A friend of mine was able to get a federal trademark on her company name because she had registered her domain name before others who tried to use the same name. If she had allowed someone else to register the domain name, she wouldn't have been able to prove ownership.
   
6. Purchase your own hosting account as well - There are many good hosting companies out there that can provide the support you need to host your web site and e-mail at costs that are very reasonable. Purchasing the hosting yourself allows you to be in control of your site not your designer.

These tips should help you make the best decision on your web designer. Always remember though, when it doubt, call Eagle Soars Marketing for your web design needs.

For the complete Business Week article, click HERE.

How are you using the world wide web?

Several years ago, one of my clients decided to upgrade their web site. They own an automotive service station - a business most wouldn't expect to get a lot of traffic from the web. He didn't change the look of the site too much, but he did concentrate his efforts on re-writing text, adding new meta descriptions and keywords, including descriptions for photos, etc. The idea was to increase the SEO score for his site.

A team of three different companies worked on the site... Mainstay was responsible for optimizing the text with the proper frequency of keywords. In addition to getting the site up to snuff with SEO text, our client focused on marketing its web site to various search engines and directories. I must say, the response has been phenomenal.

Once a quarter we track the marketing results for this client and I was shocked to see how much business was coming from the internet leads. I knew he was getting a good response from the internet, but when we actually looked at the data, we found that his web site was now accounting for at least 25% of new business coming into his shop. No longer were people looking in the yellow pages to find their mechanic... they were turning to the internet.

A recent article in "internet retailer" highlighted the findings of a study done by CSO Insights (a copy of this article can be accessed by clicking on the link at the end of this post). This report notes that many retailers are turning to web-based marketing strategies because it is with these strategies they get their best return on investment.

If the internet isn't a big part of your marketing plan, perhaps you should reconsider how you use the internet and web-based marketing strategies in your business. It's quite obvious... people are now turning to the web. When they do, make sure they find your company.

To view this article, click HERE.

What was this business owner thinking?!

I must share a story of how I was recently treated by a business owner. My desire is that business owners will read this on NOT follow this person's example.

A little over a month ago, my parents and I had an appointment with a Naturopathic Doctor. I won't go into details on how the appointment was arranged, but I will say that this ND was not from the area.

During this appointment, certain testing was done to identify problems with organs within the body. After the appointment was over, the ND suggested the use of certain homeopathic remedies and supplements. Although the products were not available to us at the visit, we paid in cash and assumed the items would be shipped to us as soon as this ND returned to her office.

Several days after the appointment, my mother called the ND's office to order several more bottles of one of the remedies. At the time, she gave her credit card number and was under the assumption the products would be shipped right away. A week later, we received only a partial order.

Several weeks later, we still had not received the additional products so we called to follow-up on the status. We were first told they did not have the items or my mother's credit card information. We were then later told they did have the order and the items were on back order. At the same time, my mother checked her credit card and found that $41 was charged to the card. We were not sure why the card would have been charged because we had not received any of the products.

Now, here's where it gets dicey for this business owner. Over a month went by and we still had not received anything. I was given the email address for the ND, so I proceeded to inquire by email. At the same time I sent the email, I asked the ND for some very basic information on the treatments she had originally suggested.

What happened next is still a shock to me. I was treated with extreme rudeness and contempt. The ND kept insisting we had received products during our visit. She also had all the billing information wrong. She even went as far as to insinuate that my mother must be losing her mind because she never called to place the order and give her credit card information.

She finally ended her discourse by telling me she did not have time to deal with this and that if I bothered her more regarding the billing and shipment of items, she would charge me a consultation fee. She also refused to give me any clarification on treatment because she didn't getting paid what she normally would for the initial consultation. The sad part was that I didn't negotiate the price for the initial consultation; she did.

I'm sorry folks, but her behavior was unprofessional AND unethical. We found that her office staff charged my mother's credit card for items that we had already paid for. Shouldn't she care about how her office staff is handling orders for customers? I also did not feel it was appropriate for her to refuse to answer questions on treatment. She negotiated the original price and should be honoring that commitment.

Why would a business owner treat any customer the way we were treated? Some may assume it is because she doesn't know any better. I say it is because she cares more about what she is getting than what she is giving... a very bad attitude to have when you are running a business.

Surveys are a great way to solicit customer feedback

In the past, if you had a product or service and someone had a need for what you were selling, they bought. These days every business is trying to customize their products and services to the wants and needs of the "individual." A great way to facilitate this customization is through a survey. Creating your own script for a survey can be quite tedious, and quite frankly, who really has the time.

Constant Contact, the #1 provider of on-demand e-mail marketing solutions, now has the capability of generating surveys. Their surveys will help you gain insight into what motivates your customer. You can add a survey to any e-mail campaign which will generate powerful results for your business.

If you are not already using Constant Contact to manage the e-marketing component of your business, you really must take a look at what they offer. We've provided a link to their site below.

Time to start planning for 2008

When did you last sit down to take a hard look at how your business was progressing and strategize for the upcoming year? Sad to say, many small business owners often overlook this essential element of operating a business. We hope you are not one of them and will take the time to plan for 2008. To guide you in this process, here are some things to consider:

1. Make an honest assessment of your achievements and shortfalls for the year. Looking at the achievements will help give you a sense of accomplishment and encourage you for the year to come. However, you must also look at what didn't work so well during the year and thoroughly assess what could have caused the breakdown. Were you short on staff? Did you cut back on your marketing? Were there any industry-related problems that affected your sales? Once you identify the problem areas, you can create solutions for the coming year.
2. Look at your Return on Investment (ROI) for marketing. We hope you've been tracking the results you've been getting from your marketing efforts. If you are not already asking every new customer how they heard about you, start now. If you have been tracking, evaluate what marketing and advertising campaigns are working and cut out the ones that are not giving you great results.
3. Identify what you would like to accomplish in 2008. Where would you like to take your business? Are there new products and services you would like to introduce? Set reasonable goals for 2008 and delineate all the action steps that need to be taken to meet those goals.
4. Create a marketing budget. Once you have identified all your action steps, you will be able to set up a marketing budget for the year.
   
5. Pat yourself on the back. Once your plan for 2008 is complete, take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back - you've accomplished something that many small business owners won't do.
   

If you don't have the time for or you need help with your planning, retain the services of a professional. Spending a little bit of money on a marketing consultant to help you plan will reap you great benefits in the long run.

We're officially doing business as Eagle Soars Marketing

When Mainstay Marketing moved its office operations to North Carolina, we did not know there was a local women's shelter that was known by the name "Mainstay." We started sending out marketing materials and all of a sudden the confusion began. One prospect told us she thought the shelter was starting a new aspect of their operations so they could raise funds.

There was only one thing we could do..... we changed our name and look. We are now proudly doing business as Eagle Soars Marketing. Thanks to the graphic design work at North Central Jersey Printing, we now have a new logo and we're beginning to market our services to the local community.